We can’t let those in charge dodge the crucial issues on prepayment scandal

ON Monday we heard an Urgent Question about the huge number of vulnerable people who are being forced to put in pre-payment gas and electricity meters. This means that they are paying more than anyone else for their energy – pre-payment meters are on the highest tariff.

This higher rate has been charged since the days of the Labour Government and it is supposed to reflect the higher cost of installing and running pre-payment meters.

What has been clear for a long time though is that energy companies have been pushing more prepayment meters onto customers on low incomes because, obviously, they find it more difficult to pay monthly or directly from their bank account (if they have one).

But worse still, the energy companies have been getting warrants to break into people’s homes by force to install the meters.

And in the last two or three years these warrants have been passed ‘on the nod’ by magistrates in batches of hundreds.

No consideration has been given to people’s individual circumstances. So vulnerable people on low benefits, people with mental health problems, disabled people, families with small children and older people on nothing but the basic pension have been paying more that is fair – and this on top of the huge price increases in the last few months.

Yesterday Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge for England and Wales banned the practice of passing warrants in batches ‘until further notice’. And the Minister faced the Urgent Question in the House of Commons. I was called about half-way down the order.

Most of the previous question had, quite rightly, been about the dreadful effect of having the companies’ sometimes thuggish private agents break into people’s houses and the huge cost of energy as a result.

Other MPs had questioned the granting of batches of warrants, but this had already been settled by the judge.

Rather than go after the same points I took up the obvious political issue.

I noted that on the ‘Sunday’ programme Grant Shapps. the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that the energy regulator Ofgem had allowed itself ‘to have the wool pulled over their eyes.

He also said that Ofgem had been taking companies ‘at their face value’.

The obvious questions which I asked were:

Who was pulling the wool?

What penalty they should face?

... ... and: Are a regulator that allows the wool to be pulled over its eyes, and a Secretary of State who fails to deal with this on his watch actually fit for purpose?

I won’t trouble you with the details of the answer I got. But it was something like, not now, let’s concentrate on the people who have been failed by the system. But the Minister had already spent half the session doing just that (and defending his government’s position). And looking at the system that allowed all this to happen is indeed the most vital question for the future.

Today [Tuesday], there is going to be a government reshuffle and Mr Shapps might well be moved to a job more suited to his abilities and a little less challenging. So, with one bound he will be free of responsibility, and the next Minister along can say, ‘Well, all that is in the past’. We shall see!